The Christmas Bet

by Alice Ward

  The dealer was a woman called Christie, an Amazon of a female with hips that rose well above the playing surface and shoulders that chronically hunched forward a fraction from her many hours bent over the table. She was pretty in her own way, but she’d found her place in The Club with the cards rather than on the stage. I smiled at her in greeting and announced, “We have ourselves a blackjack virgin here.”

  “How fun!” she exclaimed. Christie was one of those women with a naturally nurturing aura. She possessed an approachability rare to find inside the secret walls, and I saw Tabby’s uncertainty start to dissolve beneath Christie’s friendly watch. “It’s not hard, honey. It’s mostly luck with a little skill.”

  “Unless you’re counting. Then it’s all skill,” I pointed out.

  Christie shook a finger at me. “Now, don’t be a bad influence, Mr. Driscoll.”

  “Too late for that,” Tabby chimed in, shooting me a taunting sideways glance.

  I raised a brow and smothered my smirk. It was evident she was waiting for me to come back with a zinger of my own, but I refrained. I had something else in mind, which she’d discover soon enough.

  Sliding Christie some hundreds and doling out the chips she gave between Tabby and me, I placed a hand in my left pocket. A small, smooth something met my fingers, and I fiddled with it subtly to find the round protrusion on the top. Tabby didn’t notice.

  “Room for two more?”

  I looked over my shoulder to see Tripp Lubbock with a woman who’d participated in auctions a couple of times. Aurora, her name was. Not wanting to be rude but also not entirely pleased with Tripp’s presence, I plastered on a good-to-see-you face. “Of course.”

  “I see you didn’t frighten away your lovely guest last time,” he noted, taking the chair next to me without bothering to help his date into hers.

  Tabby smiled politely at him. “Nice to see you.” I didn’t like the exchange, but she disconnected her eyes from his immediately after and I knew she wasn’t interested in him the way he was in her.

  Christie started shooting cards at us, and I ignored mine to lean toward Tabby. “You want the sum of your cards to be twenty-one, or as close to twenty-one as possible,” I told her. “Right now, you’ve got thirteen. You can get another card to try and get to twenty-one, but if you go over you bust and automatically lose the hand, or you can hold and hope the dealer isn’t closer to twenty-one than you are.”

  “It sounds easy enough,” she said. She looked up to Christie. “I want another card.”

  I grinned broadly. Her spunk delighted me, her willingness to jump into things even when they were completely unfamiliar to her, but I was also praying Christie dealt her a nine or higher. If she lost, my fun would begin.

  King.

  “Damn! I-aaaah!”

  My finger pressed into the round protrusion I’d made sure to locate on the device in my pocket, and Tabby’s whole body jerked like she’d been electrocuted. Christie, Tripp, and Aurora whipped their faces toward her in alarm, and several members standing nearby glanced in our direction. I pushed the button again, and Tabby relaxed slightly.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Christie asked with concern.

  For a second, Tabby didn’t answer. She was looking at me through wide, glassy eyes and her mouth was hanging open just enough for her breath to whoosh out and caress my chin. “Yeah,” she said. Her voice was mildly breathless, and she didn’t look at Christie as she said it. Her stare was locked firmly on me. I raised an eyebrow at her innocently, but she wasn’t falling for it.

  “What did you do?” she hissed.

  “I don’t know what you mean, sweetheart,” I dismissed, forcing my mouth to remain stoic despite the smug cackle rising in my throat.

  We played through the hand, and it seemed like Tabby was going to let it go. As Christie set up our second round, however, Tabby examined me out of the corner of her eye. She reluctantly said, after a brief glimpse of her cards, “Another one, please.”

  Christie dealt a seven. “Sorry, darlin’.” I pushed the button again, and Tabby twitched violently. This time, she managed to keep quiet, but I didn’t fail to notice the way she clenched her jaw and sucked her lips between her teeth to stop herself from making a noise. The upper curves of her cheeks were beginning to turn a pale shade of pink visible even in the dim lighting. My groin started to throb.

  On the third hand, Tabby won. While I was disappointed I’d missed an opportunity to play with my device, I was utterly charmed by the way Tabby lit up and clapped her hands girlishly upon her success.

  “Congratulations,” I murmured.

  “Thank you!” she cried. Then, her expression changed to suspicion, and she dropped her voice. “Wait a minute. Nothing happened this time.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, sweetheart,” I repeated. I turned to my own cards, but I could feel her accusatory gaze burning into my temple.

  Then, the fourth hand played out. Before Christie even laid the requested card down, I tapped the button. It was worth it. The card made a bust, and Tabby let out a whispered moan only I could hear. Her chest started rising and falling a little more rapidly as her breaths grew shallower, and the pinkness in her cheeks turned to soft redness. I let it ride. Quicker and quicker her exhalations came, and she grabbed my arm so hard I was sure her nails left the same kind of imprints in my skin that they had on my limo seats despite her holding onto me through a jacket and a button-down shirt. Seeing her so horny made me rock-hard, and I considered suggesting we just return to her hotel rather than staying for the auction.

  “Stop,” she gasped desperately. Her eyes were pleading and watery at the edges with stimulation. “It’s going to make me—”

  I pushed the button to turn the device off, and she panted for breath. Christie was watching us with confusion while Tripp was chewing on his lower lip with fascination.

  “You have me wearing vibrating panties!” she whispered harshly into my ear.

  I brushed her hair aside with my nose, licked the rim of her ear with the very tip of my tongue, and whispered back, “I don’t know what you mean, sweetheart.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Tabby

  I was a mess. I might as well have been standing on the edge of a cliff, the way I felt, like my equilibrium was off and I was staring down at my demise. My body was craving to jump, absolutely crying out for that leap into the chasm, but my mind was steadfast in its determination to keep my cool and maintain my composure. It was likely the most difficult battle I’d ever faced against myself, and one I loved and hated at the same time.

  My face felt like it was on fire. I was sure I was beet-red, and I wouldn’t have been a mite surprised to discover beads of sweat were dripping from my hairline to my jaw. The space between my legs was just as warm, and I was afraid I might leave a puddle on the seat. My limbs were shaky and my eyes wouldn’t focus properly and virtually every nerve in my body was alive with electric pulses that left me unable to control my muscles, forcing from me miniature spasms in the strangest of places.

  An orgasm was the best and worst possible thing that could’ve happened in that moment.

  I hadn’t even realized the panties were of the vibrating variety when I’d put them on in the safety and solitude of my hotel suite. I’d never worn a pair before, but I’d seen them a couple times. Once when Heather dragged me to one of those sex toy parties women host and once when I wandered into a porn store after I’d turned eighteen just because I could. I’d been under the impression they all came with a very noticeable bulge in the crotch region where the vibrator was located. Apparently, these were sleeker and more discreet. I hadn’t felt anything out of the ordinary. Then again, I hadn’t exactly been playing close attention to the exact feeling of them because I was too caught up in the fact that I was wearing underwear Owen had chosen specifically for me. I wished now that I’d been more attentive when putting them on, not because it would have deterred me but because I wouldn’t have been so cau
ght off guard while sitting at a blackjack table in a room with almost a hundred people.

  “All right, everyone, get a refill on your drinks and finish your last hands! The auction is about to begin!” I recognized the voice coming through the well-hidden speakers as the same woman who had emceed the last auction I’d attended, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for her very existence as I was in that moment. Hearing her voice acted like an instant anti-aphrodisiac. She didn’t sound repulsive by any means, but it pulled me back to Earth a little and gave me the moment I needed to collect myself.

  Owen thanked our dealer and offered her a tip in the form of a chip, then spun on his seat to face me. “Do you want to leave?”

  There was no mistaking the hope in his face, nor was there any mistaking the bulge in his pants. The little game he’d just played with me — which happened to be a very effective crash course in blackjack, if I did say so myself — had clearly stimulated him as much as it had me, and I could see the desire flooding his gaze.

  If he could play games, though, I could too.

  “No,” I told him sweetly. “I want to stay and watch the auction.”

  Actually, I didn’t just want to stay to make him suffer. I genuinely wanted to watch because I was still itching to know more about The Club and the men in it. There was so much I wasn’t privy to, and it seemed like the only way I’d get any additional morsels of information was to discover them myself through careful observation and possibly eavesdropping.

  To his credit, Owen was able to maintain his composure much better than I was mine. “As you wish,” he said nonchalantly. If not for the tent in his trousers, I would’ve believed he was truly okay with hanging around a while longer.

  We slipped into the ballroom while most of the men were hounding the bar in an effort to secure themselves a drink for the duration of the auction and snagged ourselves a great vantage point at the front of the floor. The stage was still empty of women, the spotlights shining on the floor in their orderly row, and the only female I saw in the room other than myself was the auctioneer. She nodded with a courteous smile to Owen as a greeting, but she didn’t approach to speak to him, and I felt a surprising amount of validation. It was as if she knew I was with him and wanted to be respectful of that. It was too bad the men in The Club didn’t have the same reaction to my being with Owen, because the looks I received from them were not of a platonic nature.

  “So, do the women in the auction know about the dark and dangerous interests of The Club?” I asked Owen, testing the water.

  He looked down at me out of the corner of his eye, and I saw suspicion on his face. He knew what I was doing. “Yes,” he answered with audible crispness. “They’ve all signed the NDA.”

  “But not everyone has the same interests?” I pressed.

  “In a broad sense and to an unknowledgeable third party, we do. But, if you’re asking my opinion on the matter, no. Our interests are individual.”

  “What are your interests?” I probed.

  Without warning, my groin was lit with fresh vibrations, and my knees buckled a bit. I clapped a hand to my mound instinctively and almost swallowed my tongue trying to keep my moan inside. It stopped as quickly as it had started, and I slid my eyes hazily back up to Owen.

  “What was that for?” I demanded, wriggling my hips slightly to readjust the panties.

  He merely smiled one of his malicious smiles. Then, in a complete juxtaposition, he leaned down and kissed me on the forehead with such delicate affection I almost buckled again out of sheer surprise. The gesture was so innocently sweet and the first he had done of the kind that I wasn’t sure how to take it. Was he playing with me, or had he really felt an urge to give me a strings-free forehead kiss?

  Either way, I didn’t mind.

  I kept my mouth shut as the auction began. The Dealer walked around with her cards and handed them to the participating men, and I noticed Howie was included amongst them. He was looking at the stage with feverish thirst, his gaze bulleting from woman to woman, and again I felt that stage was not somewhere I’d ever hope to find myself. Standing in front of it with Owen’s hand on my hip, however, was somewhere I would’ve been delighted to find myself many times over.

  “You know your friend is here?” I asked him softly. He looked at me quizzically, so I jutted my chin in Howie’s direction. He glanced around, then turned back to me with a nod.

  “He told me he’d be coming,” he murmured. “I didn’t think he’d be bidding though.”

  “Does Howie have the same interests you do?” I couldn’t help myself.

  Owen laughed outright, and it was loud enough to grab the attention of those nearest us as well as the women standing on the platform. “No,” he said once his guffaws quieted. “Quite the opposite.”

  “What are his?” I inquired with faux innocence.

  Again, the panties buzzed to life between my thighs. The constant on-off clit teasing I’d been receiving since our arrival was starting to take its toll. Even when the underwear was just being underwear, I still felt the twitches in my core and didn’t seem to lose any arousal steam. Each time he turned them on, I didn’t have to rebuild to where I had last been, but rather I continued building from where I’d left off. A climax for the ages was hovering too near in my future, and I was terrified it would arrive while I was surrounded by a horde of strange men.

  As my hips bucked, my head shot up, and I accidentally made direct eye contact with one of the women. She was looking at me unblinkingly, practically studying me, and I realized with horror she probably knew what was going on. At the very least, she had to be aware I was verging on an orgasm. Before I could gauge her reaction to the scene I was involuntarily making, however, she beamed her eyes toward Owen and fixated on him just as pointedly as she had me. The expression on her face changed. There was visible want and a glimmer of hope, and I detected a cloud of anger beneath the painted surface. I didn’t ask Owen who she was. I couldn’t. If I opened my mouth, I was going to moan.

  He switched the vibration off and gave me a second kiss on my forehead. I hadn’t yet torn my gaze from the woman, and I saw her mouth curl downward with disgust as he did it. There was no question about it. She knew him, and she was not happy to see him with me.

  “Why are these women doing this?” I questioned quietly. I didn’t want to outright ask who she was, mainly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that particular mystery, but I figured the query would shed some light both on her and The Club.

  “The reasons vary,” he explained. “Some are socialites hoping to make excellent social connections. Others are part of charitable foundations and find this a preferable way to earn donations for their organizations rather than holding a heap of benefits and asking for money. There’s a few who have no ambitions other than to marry wealthy, and this gives them that chance. The motivation to participate depends on the woman.”

  I analyzed his admirer. She wasn’t cute or pretty or beautiful, at least in my opinion, but she was undeniably sexy, like the type of woman men watched getting gangbanged in porn but would never consider taking home to meet their moms. Her breasts were basically nonexistent, yet I could tell with the littlest twist that she had a great ass. With her flawless hair, makeup, and nails, she seemed like she fit in exceedingly well at The Club. I couldn’t imagine her as being Owen’s type though.

  Hell, who was I kidding? I didn’t want to believe Owen’s type could have possibly included anything other than me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Owen

  Tabby’s curiosity about the perversions of Club members, myself included, wasn’t just an exciting topic for her. With each question she threw my way, I felt a stab of anticipatory delight. My plans for the vibrating panties had extended only as far as the blackjack table when I purchased them, but watching her try to stand while her clit was assaulted was exponentially more arousing. I may not have been keen on answering her questions, but I was ecstatic to have her ask them and
watch her lower lip start to tremble as she choked on restrained moans.

  Only three women were left on the stage now, Pippa amongst them. I’d felt her staring at me from the moment she’d stood in her designated spotlight, and I was sure it hadn’t escaped Tabby’s notice. Pippa might as well have been part of the wall, though, because I hadn’t looked at her once. How could I have been expected to acknowledge her when I had a blushing, panting, stubborn nymph at my side with panties certain to be soaked thanks to my handless ministrations?

  “Did you want me to be up there when you thought about bringing me here the first time?”

  The question threw me for a loop, and I was speechless for a moment. From the outside in, it seemed a perfectly reasonable inquiry, and it was a notion that had legitimately crossed my mind upon initially meeting her, especially when she’d so adorably tried to clean my pants in front of a crowd. The concept was foreign to me now. I didn’t have the slightest interest in seeing Tabby standing in one of those spotlights, ripe for the picking of whatever lucky man had the best hand. It was inconceivable she wouldn’t be the first chosen, after all.

  “I considered it briefly,” I told her. The answer was honest but edged, forcefully injecting my current displeasure with the thought. “Briefly.”

  “Why’d you change your mind?” she asked.

  This also gave me pause, but not for the same reason. I was reluctant to share the truth. “I developed different intentions,” I confessed.

  “When?”

  “When I realized you were too spunky to pass on.” I slivered my gaze to her as the animal inside me sniffed prey. “I had my own selfish interests to indulge.”

  “And what interests were those?” she pried, fluttering her lashes to feign naivety.

  I pressed the remote in my pocket, and Tabby instantly crumpled. Her torso shot forward, effectively pushing her ass back against me, while her knees threatened to give way. I clasped my hand around her middle to keep her upright and felt her chest contracting with haggard gasps. Her skin was hot to the touch, microscopic beads of sweat beginning to sheen along her temples, and with her back flat against my chest I could feel her heartbeat quiver. In an instant, I had my hand beneath her skirt, prying the offending panties aside to slip a finger into her. She clenched around me, and I knew there were only seconds before she detonated.